Author ORCID Identifier
0000-0002-1021-8252
Abstract
Jeju Island, located on the remote periphery of the Korean peninsula and historically a site of exile, has become a popular destination for domestic migration over the past decade. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopia as a methodological framework and taking Jeju Island as an example to reveal “islandness,” this paper discusses how the island is imagined and represented in Korean society. From this perspective, Jeju Island is regarded exteriorly as a place outside the ordinary and internally as a heterogeneous place. Further, in the heterotopia of “illusion” and “compensation,” a sojourn on Jeju Island is expected and experienced as terminable and heterochronic. The island’s uniqueness as a reflecting and critical location is a significant factor in creating this heterotopic sense of place. Therefore, Jeju Island is noted as a “counter- place” to all other places in the “Hell Joseon,” a term signifying the socioeconomic regime in South Korea (Joseon). Meanwhile, maritime (im)mobility plays a crucial role in this discourse and practice; the sea, a fluid and mobile space enabling marine mobilities, makes transverse mobilities (at least psychologically) quite tricky, if not impossible, and renders dwelling on the island a voluntary exile. By disclosing the heterotopic nature of these representations, this paper also indicates that these representations eventually become disillusioned and uncompensated in the capitalist regime.
Recommended Citation
Kim, Taehee
(2025)
"Maritime (Im)Mobility and Heterotopia: Jeju Island in South Korea,"
Kritika Kultura:
No.
47, Article 5.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.13185/1656-152X.2181
Available at:
https://archium.ateneo.edu/kk/vol1/iss47/5
Included in
Asian Studies Commons, Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons
